BA(Hons) (Melbourne), DPhil (York)

Biography

Kim Phillips is Associate Professor in History at the University of Auckland, where she previously held the positions of Lecturer (1997-2001) and Senior Lecturer (2001-2013). Kim is originally from Melbourne, Australia, where she completed her BA and BA (Hons) at the University of Melbourne (1991) before receiving a Commonwealth Scholarship to study at the Centre for Medieval Studies, University of York, UK, where she completed her DPhil (1998).

Research | Current

Medieval Europe, c. 1100-1550

Women's and gender history

Youth and lifecycle history

History of sexuality and the body

Medieval travel and ethnographic writing

Cross-cultural encounters

Kim Phillips’s research explores medieval European cultures, societies and global interactions (1100–1550), with particular interests in women, gender, sexualities, life cycle, travel, cross-cultural encounters, and ethnicities. She is the author or co-author of three books, editor or co-editor of four collections of scholarly essays, and author of around 40 refereed journal articles or book chapters, encyclopaedia entries, and review essays, plus many scholarly reviews. At present she is working on a book on meanings of the female breast in medieval European cultures and societies and has chapters or articles in progress on topics including medieval youth, premodern beauty ideals, and medieval women travellers.

Distinctions/Honours

2015. Nominated for the Jerry Bentley Prize in World History (American Historical Association) for Before Orientalism: Asian Peoples and Cultures in European Travel Writing (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014).

2005-9. President, Australian and New Zealand Association for Medieval and Early Modern Studies (ANZAMEMS).